Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media report them inadequately. We blog here because our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, New York, Madrid, London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening and why. This ongoing war is killing us.

Thursday, June 04, 2015

04-Jun-15: Exploding for decades: UNRWA needs more, more, more

The future for Palestinian Arab children, with or without
those billions of dollars of UNRWA investment, has
barely changed in decades [Image Source from 1970]

donors to increase their efforts to mobilise extra funds to support UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Speaking at a 65th anniversary event in New York, he paid tribute to UNRWA, pointing out that the EU remained its largest donor [having] provided over €1.6 billion... mainly aiming to sustain the delivery of essential public services to the refugees... "Despite this substantial support, we know that EU contributions alone are not enough to meet the increasing needs of the Agency"... Additional funds were essential, he said: "This will allow Palestinian refugees to continue benefiting from basic services. And to have a perspective for human development."

relief of the Palestine refugees... to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief...

Termination is, 65 years later, nowhere in sight. UNRWA today is the UN's single largest agency. It employs a staff of more than 30,000, of whom 99% are locally recruited Palestinians [Wikipedia].

It's not the United Nations' only refugee agency, as most people know. By far the more significant one is the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, a body which merely deals with all the world's refugees. By contrast, UNRWA supports one class of refugees only:

Palestine refugees... defined as “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict

Amazing really. If you had lived there for two years, you were entitled to UNRWA support, and so are your children, and their great-great-great grandchildren. The UN defined Palestine refugee status to be something you inherited... forever. And that's just one of a long list of criticisms that

But our focus in this post is money.

When the EU's Mr Stylianides asked for more donations, it might have been a real service if he had shone a small spotlight on who gives the money for this bizarre organization today. And who does not. And on the fact that funding emergencies are a routine thing for UNRWA officials.

Those Palestinian Arabs who depend on UNRWA probably consider themselves lucky to be part of the oil-soaked Arab world and its uber-wealthy potentates. UN announcements about UNRWA's future (articles like "Arab and Other Donors Vow Increased Support for UNRWA", September 27, 2013) probably fill their hearts with pride and optimism. How great to be part of a people that knows how to look after its own and never stints on the belt-tightening that this calls for.OK, we're being deeply cynical. According to the latest published list of major donors to UNRWA [2013 donations - source], the money for its work comes from these entities, ranked in order of money given:

Donor

Donation USD

USA

294,023,401

EC

216,386,867

Saudi
Arabia

151,566,702

UK

93,737,454

Sweden

54,439,768

Germany

53,061,050

Norway

34,595,162

Japan

28,836,915

Switzerland

23,267,282

Australia

22,445,260

Netherlands

20,049,472

Denmark

18,638,884

Kuwait

17,000,000

France

12,852,039

Italy

10,714,805

Belgium

10,271,039

Finland

9,073,004

Ireland

7,374,523

Palestine

6,841,219

Turkey

6,475,000

Total

1,091,649,846

(Is the EU the largest provider of funds to UNRWA, as Mr Stylianides said above? Probably. Precise definitions tend to get lost in public discussions, especially when the issues are subject to political push/pull. It's not that important to our discussion.)

Hereis UNRWA's 2012 table (when Saudi Arabi appeared on the list as the sole Arab government). And hereis the table from 2010 (when not a single Arab government made it onto the list). By the way, there's no point in over-exerting ourselves to locate the champions of the Palestinian Arab cause, the phenomenally super-wealthy sheikhdoms and Persian Gulf family-businesses-posing-as-states on these donor lists. Qatar, and the other ruling/owning families, clearly have (ahem) other priorities.Meanwhile the number of "Palestinian refugees" has been exploding for decades. According to UNRWA's published data:

In May 1951, UNRWA inherited a list of 950,000 persons from its predecessor agencies. In the first four months of operations, UNRWA reduced this list to 860,000 persons, based on painstaking census efforts and identification of fraudulent claims. The 1948 registered refugees and their descendants now number five million,

Having multiplied itself by nearly six in these 6+ decades of furthering "conditions of peace and stability" and funding by others, does anyone imagine this number of beneficiaries is about to get smaller? Ever?

Now imagine how deep and wide the support for UNRWA would be if it lived up to those goals it set for itself decades ago.

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THIS ONGOING WAR is not part of the activity of the Malki Foundation which was founded by us, Frimet and Arnold Roth of Jerusalem, on September 9, 2001. But it is inspired by the same tragic circumstances. The Malki Foundation (also known by its Hebrew name: Keren Malki) is a memorial to the life of our daughter, Malki. She's in the photo below this paragraph. Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in a massacre in the centre of Jerusalem carried out by Hamas.

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This Ongoing War: About this blog

Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media often report them inadequately. Our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, in New York, in Madrid, in London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening. This ongoing war is killing us.